{"id":766,"date":"2009-10-13T11:09:58","date_gmt":"2009-10-13T19:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/?p=766"},"modified":"2009-10-13T11:09:58","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T19:09:58","slug":"putting-bike-ride-high-fives-behind-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/2009\/10\/13\/putting-bike-ride-high-fives-behind-me\/","title":{"rendered":"putting bike ride high fives behind me"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>I spoke to you in cautious tones<br \/>\nYou answered me with no pretense<br \/>\nAnd still I feel I said too much<br \/>\nMy silence is my self defense<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Rode across town last night to see friends, make dinner, comfort each other about heart transgressions. I saw this quote on a sign along the way: &#8220;In three words I can sum up everything I&#8217;ve learned about life \u2014 It goes on&#8221; &#8212; Robert Frost. As I&#8217;ve spent much time lately trying to describe to who I am and how I want to live; first to myself, and then to those close to me. We speak of bike club: assholery, leadership, relationships, friendship&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t help the way that I feel, but I can change my life and over time leave behind those who cannot be a part of it by their own accord.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I feel I spoke my truth about thinking you were afraid, and that I didn&#8217;t want for you to push me away because of it.  It seems to me that you are bolstering your lifestyle-as-identity partly out of fear of losing yourself in a relationship with me, or with anyone, that resembles a normal, or unintentional, unoriginal, should-ed life.  If that is the case, then I wholly understand the fear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/btmspox\/361144599\/in\/set-72157594485837423\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Dad\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/143\/361144599_4cb83d075d_m.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"152\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a> As Shatner says, &#8220;What are you afraid of? Failure?&#8221;. I&#8217;ve officially had enough dating. I&#8217;m exhausted from the continual outpouring of energy to be let down so quickly. Some new relationships have developed, and those will go on, but I&#8217;m definitely heads-down. This doesn&#8217;t mean I don&#8217;t want a relationship right now, I just can&#8217;t find something that feels right. Feeling-sidebar: The old line used to be someone who shares hobbies or someone who shares personality, but now my own feelings have shown themselves to be the capstone. I&#8217;ve dated a handful of awesome people, some among the best people I know, who I&#8217;ve had less feelings for than much more self-centered girls. This is likely totally unfair and unreasonable, but somehow a part of reality.<\/p>\n<p>The simple answer continues to be that I&#8217;m afraid of ending up where my father is. Somewhere I have a comment or an email from mother saying it&#8217;s not going to happen, but you know, it&#8217;s the easiest answer to put my finger on. Very few of you know my father. The relevant portion is that between his health issues (drinking + smoking) and his depression (life didn&#8217;t turn out how he thought it would) he spends most of his time alone, watching sports on TV, in a small town in Maine.<\/p>\n<p>If I keep pushing, forever, failure will be always be behind me. Right? Lifestyle-as-identity&#8230; Much time has been spent contemplating and I clearly don&#8217;t get my identity from my social groups. Everyone has to get it somewhere, what&#8217;s wrong with getting my identity from how I choose to live rather than who I belong to? I find it much more appealing to defend my lifestyle than geeks, bikes (messengers&#8230;), as a whole. Unlike some, I can usually separate myself from these groups and move along, sans the &#8220;fear of missing out&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I am someone who thinks, feels, builds, and lives.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s who I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spoke to you in cautious tones You answered me with no pretense And still I feel I said too much My silence is my self defense Rode across town last night to see friends, make dinner, comfort each other about heart transgressions. I saw this quote on a sign along the way: &#8220;In three [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":767,"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions\/767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.loftninjas.org\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}